About
I started my career in construction with a degree in Building and Construction Technology from UMass Amherst, working as a structural component designer and project coordinator. The work was rewarding, but I was frustrated with how slowly things moved. New techniques took years to adopt, code advancements crawled, and the whole industry felt resistant to change. I wanted to build and experiment faster, to iterate without waiting for the world to catch up.
Code gave me that freedom. I taught myself through YouTube tutorials and side projects, then completed a bootcamp at JRS Coding School in Charleston, SC in 2019. Since then, I've worked as a web developer, integration specialist, and more recently, software architect.
My construction background taught me how to think about systems. I learned how components interact under stress, how to identify load-bearing structures, and how to anticipate where things might fail. Those same principles apply when I'm designing software architecture. The medium changed, but the thinking didn't.
What I write here
Mostly, I write about things I'm figuring out. Cloud infrastructure, security and compliance, and the occasional detour into whatever has my attention that month. The posts tend to be detailed, because the version I wanted to find usually didn't exist.
If you're looking for a place to start:
- Designing My Personal Site as a Production System is the most opinionated thing here.
- Building a Compliant AWS S3 Module with Terraform is the most practical.
You can also browse everything by date or subscribe by RSS.
What I'm into lately
Right now I'm exploring cloud compliance work, learning how much of it can be pushed into code instead of spreadsheets. I'm also watching how AI changes this job. I'm looking at it the same way I look at any system, except this one has people in it as well as machines.
When I'm not working
I serve as the Beach Cleanup Coordinator on the board of the Surfrider Foundation Space Coast Chapter. The ocean matters to me, and I spend as much time on or in it as I can: swimming, paddleboarding, surfing, snorkeling.
Say hello
If something here was useful, or wrong, or you just want to talk about it, I'd like to hear from you.